User blog:Racconcityangel/Tuesday Truths: Reviewing The Gladiator... not that one.
Hey there, comrades and defectors! I'm Lacey, and this is Tuesday Truths, where we play the meddling kid to popular culture's villainous views on gaming. This week's blog will be looking at an amazing novel by author Harry Turtledove,famous for his plethora of alternate history stories.The The Gladiator was written for young adults, but carries a heavy gaming theme along with the political what-ifs of the Crosstime Traffic novels. Like many of Turtledove's alternate histories, The Gladiator takes a look at the possibility of a world that pivots on a single event in history, such as the Confederates winning the Civil War, or the Axis of Evil winning WWII. The timeline of the novel revolves around the United States of America "losing" the Cold War (allowing Cuba to keep it's weapons, etc.) Turtledove takes these parallel worlds rather seriously, and his works are generally a good read for anyone who likes to imagine (aka, gamers.) The Gladiator takes place in the Italian Peoples Republic in the year 2097, and follows the lives of two students, Gianfranco Mazzilli and Annarita Crosetti. Annarita is a very good student, and participates in The Young Socialists' League. Her neighbor, Gianfranco (their families share a kitchen and bathroom,) is your typical teenage boy, not doing great in school, but likeable nonetheless. They're friends by association, but are nothing alike. Gianfranco stumbles upon a game store called The Gladiator and begins to play a game called Rails Across Europe: a board game in which the player is a railroad tycoon from the 1900's. Annarita is sent by the YSL to investigate The Gladiator on the accusation that Rails Across Europe is distinctly capitalist in nature. Though Annarita doesn't find it to be a corrupting influence, her rival calls in the government watchdogs and gets the shop shut down. Though this twist is particularly depressing to Gianfranco, and potentially dangerous to both youths for their involvement, the real controversy comes from the fact that the shopkeep eventually comes to them for help with an unbelievable problem. Eduardo works for a company that sells products from an alternate dimension, and he himself is a foreigner, of sorts. His way home happens to be in the basement of The Gladiator. A thrilling adventure ensues. The reason that i chose to bring up The Gladiator has to do with the fact that it actually paints gaming as a fairly positive pasttime, overall. Gianfranco, in learning the game, improves his grades in school, and is suddenly enthralled with the ideas he runs into. He doesn't see it as capitalist propaganda the way that the antagonists do. The book itsself showcases the lives of the teens in a state that restricts freedoms of all sorts. The protagonists react accordingly when presented with the idea that other timelines may not have gone the way that theirs has, and the idea that the company selling the games is also selling a bit of hope for the future as well. Overall, Turtledove did well in portraying gamers as the good guys. I give him a 8 out of 10 for advocacy in literature. If you get a moment, go check out the Harry Turtledove wikia here. Anyone who hasn't read good alternate history is sadly missing out, and i would recommend it to gamers and mundanes alike. Use your imagination for change. And don't miss out on Read RPG's in Public Week, courtesy of The Escapist. Racconcityangel 20:20, July 27, 2010 (UTC) Category:Tuesday Truths Category:Blog posts